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Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a management solution for the virtualized datacenter, enabling you to configure and manage your virtualization host, networking, and storage resources in order to create and deploy virtual machines and services to private clouds that you have created.

Here are some general changes in VMM in the System Center 2012 SP1 release that you might need to consider:

The VMM Self-Service Portal is no longer supported in System Center 2012 SP1. Instead, we recommend that you use System Center 2012 SP1 - App Controller as the self-service portal solution.

Self-service users can now use the VMM console instead of the VMM Self-Service Portal to perform tasks such as deploying virtual machines and services.

High availability with N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) is no longer supported. VMM is compatible with virtual Fibre Channels that are configured for virtual machines in Hyper-V.

The OVF tool is no longer supported. Instead, to import and export an OVF package to Hyper-V, you can use the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC), which converts the VMDK/VHD file.

The following tables summarize VMM enhancements and other changes in the System Center 2012 SP1 release.

Deploying VMM

Enhancements to the matrix of supported versions of operating systems and other required software.

Integration with Windows Server 2012 which delivers numerous enhancements to the Microsoft Hyper-V features, as follows:

New model for virtual machine networking, including network virtualization and virtual local area networks (VLANs) for network isolation.

Management of the Hyper-V extensible switch, including deployment and configuration of virtual switch extensions using a new logical switch concept.

Support for network virtualization that includes support for using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to assign customer addresses using Network Virtualization with Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE) to virtualize the IP address of a virtual machine.

Software-defined networking with support for Hyper-V network virtualization and switch extension management. This allows a constant network configuration in the datacenter.

Introduction of a logical switch that allows you to manage individual switch instances across multiple Hyper-V hosts as a single entity.

Ability to deploy and manage third-party switch extensions, such as Cisco 1KV and InMon. For organizations that have investments in these third-party products, these can be integrated into VMM.

Configuring Fabric Resources in VMM - Storage

Support for file shares that leverage the new 3.0 version of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that is introduced in Windows Server 2012. VMM in this release includes support for designating network file shares on Windows Server 2012 computers as the storage location for virtual machine files, such as configuration, virtual hard disk (.vhd/.vhdx) files and checkpoints.

SMB 3.0 file shares provide the following benefits when they are used with VMM in this release:

- Hyper-V over SMB supports file servers and storage with improved efficiency compared to traditional storage area networks (SANs).
- If you use SMB 3.0 file shares as the storage locations for virtual machine files, you can "live migrate" virtual machines that are running between two standalone Hyper-V hosts or between two stand-alone Hyper-V host clusters. Because the storage location is a shared location that is available from the source and destination hosts, only the virtual machine state must transfer between hosts.

You can create SMB 3.0 file shares on standalone Windows Server 2012 file servers and on clustered Windows Server 2012 file servers. If you use a standalone file server, you can designate an SMB 3.0 file share as the virtual machine storage location on a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host cluster. However, this is not a highly available solution.

The new Windows Standards-Based Storage Management service replaces the Microsoft Storage Management Service in System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. The new service uses the Windows Storage Management application programming interface (API), a WMI-based programming interface that is included in Windows Server 2012. This new API enables you to discover storage by using multiple provider types. Important: The Windows Storage Management API supersedes the Virtual Disk Service (VDS) interface. Therefore, if you are using a storage array that uses only the VDS hardware provider (and not SMI-S), storage area network (SAN) transfer capabilities will no longer be available. A SAN transfer enables you to migrate a virtual machine from one location to another when the virtual hard disk is located on a storage array. The logical unit number (LUN) that contains the virtual machine is remapped from the source computer to the destination computer instead of transferring the files over the network.

In this release, VMM supports the following types of storage providers and arrays:

During the discovery process, you can run deep discovery to see more detailed information about the physical computer hardware before you deploy the operating system. In this release, deep discovery functionality is only partially enabled. You can view the physical network adapter information, information about the CPU, and the amount of memory. You can configure network options such as logical switches, and you can change the settings for the network adapter that VMM automatically designates as the management network adapter.

Support for physical network adapter configuration as follows:

- IP configuration
- Logical switch creation
- NIC Teaming

Support for Host vNIC configuration.

Support for startup disk selection as part of operating system deployment.

Enhanced default auto disk selection logic as part of operating system deployment.

Virtual Machines and Services

Support for deployment of services to virtual machines in a domain or workgroup that does not have a trust relationship with the domain of the VMM management server.

In Hyper-V only, support for the deployment of services to virtual machines that are not connected, where the service instance does not have network connectivity to the VMM management server, to a VMM library server, or to both.

When deploying a virtual machine as part of a service and creating a SQL Server profile, added support for SQL Server 2012 as an instance of Microsoft SQL Server.

Application profiles:

For the deployment of application packages, added support for updated versions of the following applications:

Web Deploy 3.0

Data-tier Application Framework (DAC Fx) 3.0

Server App-V SP1

Support for application profiles that run multiple scripts before and after installing an application on a virtual machine, and if a script fails, the capability to rerun if specified to do so in the profile.

Support for deploying MSDeploy packages to existing Internet Information Services (IIS) servers, whether they are virtual or physical, managed by VMM or not (Web Application Host).

Support for adding Windows Server 2012 roles and features when creating and deploying services, such as the Windows Server Update Services role.

Support for IIS application hosts, which allow you to deploy websites into pre-existing IIS web farms.

Support for the new version of the virtual hard disk format that is introduced in Windows Server 2012. This new format is referred to as VHDX. Compared to the older VHD format, VHDX has a much larger storage capacity of up to 64 TB. The VHDX format also provides data corruption protection during power failures. Additionally, it offers improved alignment of the virtual hard disk format to perform well on large-sector physical disks.

Support for VHDX includes the following:

- You can convert a virtual hard disk for a virtual machine that is deployed to a Windows Server 2012-based host from the .vhd to .vhdx virtual hard disk format. The conversion includes any associated checkpoints.
- If you create a new virtual machine with a blank virtual hard disk, VMM determines whether the format should be .vhd or .vhdx, depending on the operating system of the host that is selected during placement. If it is a Windows Server 2012–based host, VMM uses the .vhdx format. If it is a Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1–based host, VMM uses the .vhd format.
- If you provision a physical computer as a Hyper-V host, you can specify a .vhdx file as the image for the base operating system.
- You can use VMM to "rapidly provision" any virtual machines that use VHDX-based virtual hard disks from SAN-copy capable templates.
- A VMM library server that runs Windows Server 2012 automatically indexes .vhdx files.
- In addition to the small and large blank .vhd files that were available in previous versions of VMM, the VMM library in System Center 2012 SP1 also contains both a small (16 gigabytes (GB)) and a large (60 GB) blank .vhdx files.

Support for provisioning a physical computer as a Hyper-V host. When you provision a physical computer as a Hyper-V host, you can use a Windows Server 2012-based virtual hard disk that is in the .vhdx or .vhd format as the base operating system image.

Linux-based virtual machines are now fully supported with the following:

- Added settings for Linux-specific operating system specialization when you are creating a Linux-based virtual machine template. Important: These settings are supported only when the Linux virtual machine is deployed on Hyper-V.
- Ability to include a Linux virtual machine template in a service template that deploys a multi-tier application or service.
- Updated Windows PowerShell cmdlets to support this new functionality.

Ability to configure availability options for virtual machines on Hyper-V host clusters by using the VMM console, without having to open Failover Cluster Manager.

Live Migration

Live migration between nodes in two different clusters. You can migrate between nodes within a cluster, or between nodes in different clusters.

Storage migration, which allows for the migration of virtual machine storage. You can migrate storage in order to update the physical storage available in Hyper-V, or to mitigate bottlenecks in storage performance. Storage can be added to either a standalone computer or a Hyper-V cluster. Then, virtual machines can be moved to the new storage while they continue to run.

Live VSM. By using live virtual system migration (VSM) you can migrate both virtual machines and storage in a single action.

Concurrent live migration. You can perform multiple concurrent live migrations of virtual machines and storage. The allowable number of concurrent live migrations can be configured manually. Attempted concurrent live migrations in excess of the limit will be queued.

VMM Console

Integration of third-party user interface (UI) add-ins for the VMM console that can extend the functionality of the console. For example, you can create console add-ins that will allow you to do the following:

- Add ribbon entries in the VMM console to launch web browsers and Windows applications directly from the ribbon.
- Enable new actions or additional configuration for VMM objects by writing an application that uses context that is passed regarding the selected VMM objects.
- Embed custom Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI or web portals directly into the VMM console’s main views to provide a more fully integrated experience.

Several significant performance enhancements to the VMM console. Load times are decreased and the performance of sorting and filtering views is significantly improved. For viewing job history, jobs are now loaded incrementally and the views have a richer set of data-filtering options, reducing the effect of large sets of jobs on console performance.

Overview pages in the VMM console now display various reports about usage and capacity metrics for services, tenants and clouds.

Additional Improvements

Performance and scalability:

- Increased the scale of a VMM management server to be able to manage 1000 hosts and 25,000 virtual machines. Note: Scale limits remain consistent no matter which supported hypervisors are used. VMM can manage 25,000 virtual machines, wherever they are located.
- Support for a 64 node cluster.
- Performance enhancement to the VMM console.

Integration with Operation Manager as follows:

- Ability to use Operations Manager to view information related to application hosts, load balancers, and user roles while also being able to monitor virtual machines, services, host systems, network adapters, and other elements of the fabric.
- Receive notifications from Operations Manager if the load on a cloud has exceeded a chosen threshold of fabric capacity. Concurrently review other clouds for available excess capacity that can be reallocated to meet the demand.
- Generate reports that track the resource usage of each configured service or service user, to aid in capacity planning.

Support for updateable Help for VMM cmdlets.

Network Virtualization

VMM in this release provides support for the network virtualization capabilities that are available in Windows Server 2012.

Network virtualization provides the ability to run multiple virtual network infrastructures, potentially with overlapping IP addresses, on the same physical network. With network virtualization, each virtual network infrastructure operates as if it is the only one that is running on the shared network infrastructure. This enables two different business groups that are using VMM to use the same IP addressing scheme without conflict. In addition, network virtualization provides isolation so that only virtual machines on a specific virtual network infrastructure can communicate with each other.

Network virtualization in Windows Server 2012 is designed to remove the constraints of VLAN and hierarchical IP address assignment for virtual machine provisioning. This enables flexibility in virtual machine placement because the virtual machine can keep its IP address regardless of which host it is placed on. Placement is not limited by physical IP subnet hierarchies or VLAN configurations.

To virtualize the network in Windows Server 2012, each virtual machine is assigned two IP addresses as follows:

A customer address. This IP address is visible to the virtual machine and is used by customers to communicate with the virtual machine.

A provider address. This IP address is used by the Hyper-V computer that hosts the virtual machine. It is not visible to the virtual machine.

In this release, you can virtualize the IP address of a virtual machine by using Network Virtualization with Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE). In NVGRE, all of the virtual machines packets are encapsulated with a new header before they are sent on the physical network. IP encapsulation offers better scalability because all of the virtual machines on a specific host can share the same provider IP address.

VMM creates the necessary IP address mappings for virtual machines to take advantage of the network virtualization capabilities in Windows Server 2012. To assign provider addresses, VMM uses an IP address pool that is associated with a logical network. To assign customer addresses, VMM uses an IP address pool that is associated with a virtual machine subnet that is, in turn, associated with a virtual machine network.

In this release, you can now assign customer addresses through DHCP or by using static IP addresses. When you create an IP address pool for a virtual machine subnet, the pool is automatically enabled to provision IP addresses by either mechanism. For DHCP to work correctly, the new DHCPv4 Server Switch Extension is required on all Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts.

System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager with Service Pack 1

System Requirements are dependent on the features installed. The following system requirements are depending on the feature(s) users want to install. More infomation for the system requirements can be found here

System Requirements: VMM Management Server in System Center 2012 SP1

Hardware requirements

The following tables list the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for the System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) management server, based on the number of hosts that you manage.

Managing up to 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

Pentium 4, 2 gigahertz (GHz) (x64)

Dual-processor, dual-core, 2.8 GHz (x64) or greater

RAM

4 gigabytes (GB)

4 GB

Hard disk space, without a local VMM database

2 GB

40 GB

Hard disk space, with a local, full version of Microsoft SQL Server

80 GB

150 GB

Managing more than 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz (x64)

Dual-processor, dual-core, 3.6 GHz or greater (x64)

RAM

4 GB

8 GB

Hard disk space

10 GB

50 GB

Software requirements

Before you install the VMM management server, you must install the following software.

Windows Remote Management (WinRM) service Note: If the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is not started, the setup process will display an error during the prerequisites check. You must start the service before setup can continue.

- WinRM 2.0 is included in the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. By default, the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is set to start automatically (delayed start).
- WinRM 3.0 is included in Windows Server 2012 and in Windows Server 2012 R2. By default, the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is set to start automatically.

- On a computer that runs Windows Server 2008 R2, if Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 is not installed (it is not installed by default), the VMM setup wizard will install it.
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4 is included in Windows Server 2012.
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 is included in Windows Server 2012 R2and is available from Setup.
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1 is included in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 development system.

- Windows AIK is available in the Microsoft Download Center. To install Windows AIK, you can download the ISO file, write the ISO file to a DVD by using a non-Microsoft tool, and then install Windows AIK from the DVD.
- Windows ADK is available in the Microsoft Download Center.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Command Line Utilities or SQL Server 2012 Command Line Utilities, depending on which version of SQL Server you install Note: If you do not install these utilities, this will not block the installation. These utilities are required if you plan to deploy services that use SQL Server data-tier applications (.dacpac files).

Additional information

The computer on which you install the VMM management server must be a member of an Active Directory domain.

The name of the computer on which you install the VMM management server cannot exceed 15 characters.

Don’t install the VMM management server, or other System Center components other than agents, on servers running Hyper-V. You can install System Center components in virtual machines.

Installing the VMM management server in a virtual machine can help you reduce the number of physical servers that you maintain, and simplify some management tasks.

If you install the VMM management server on a virtual machine and you use the Dynamic Memory feature of Hyper-V, you must set the startup RAM for the virtual machine to be at least 2,048 megabytes (MB).

You can use VMM to install a highly available VMM management server on a failover cluster that runs any supported operating system.

System Requirements: VMM Console in in System Center 2012 SP1

Hardware requirements

The following requirements are the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for the System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) console, based on the number of hosts that you manage.

Managing up to 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Processor

Pentium 4, 1 gigahertz (GHz) or greater

RAM

2 gigabytes (GB)

Hard disk space

2 GB

Managing more than 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Processor

Pentium 4, dual processor, 2 GHz or greater

RAM

4 GB

Hard disk space

4 GB

Software requirements

You must install the following software before you install the VMM console.

- On a computer that runs Windows 7, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 is installed by default.
- On a computer that runs Windows Server 2008 R2, if Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 is not installed (it is not installed by default), the VMM setup wizard will install it.
- On a computer that runs Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, Microsoft .NET Framework 4 is included.
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 is available at the Visual Studio Downloads page.

Supported operating systems

Operating system for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager

Edition

System architecture

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 or earlier (full installation)

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x64

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or earlier

Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate

x86 and x64

Operating system for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1

Edition

System architecture

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (full installation)

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x64

Windows 7 with Service Pack 1

Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate

x86 and x64

Windows Server 2012

Standard and Datacenter

64-bit

Windows 8

Professional and Enterprise

32-bit and 64-bit

Additional information

The computer on which you install the VMM console must be a member of an Active Directory domain.

System Requirements: VMM Database in System Center 2012 SP1

Database hardware requirements

The following tables provide the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for the System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) database. These requirements are based on the number of hosts that you manage. For better performance, do not store the VMM database files on the disk that is used for the operating system.

Managing up to 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

Pentium 4, 2.8 gigahertz (GHz)

Dual-core 64-bit, 2 GHz

RAM

2 gigabytes (GB)

4 GB

Hard disk (on which the operating system is installed)

80 GB

150 GB

Hard disk free space (on which the database is stored)

20 GB

50 GB

Managing more than 150 hosts

Hardware component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

Dual-core 64-bit, 2 GHz

Dual-core 64-bit, 2.8 GHz

RAM

4 GB

8 GB

Hard disk (on which the operating system is installed)

150 GB

200 GB

Hard disk free space (on which the database is stored)

50 GB

75 GB

Supported versions of SQL Server

To host the VMM database, VMM supports the following versions of Microsoft SQL Server software.

SQL Server for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager

Service pack

Editions

SQL Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

Service Pack 2 or later

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

SQL Server 2008 (64-bit)

Service Pack 2 or later

Standard and Enterprise

SQL Server for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1

Service pack

Editions

SQL Server 2008 R2

Service Pack 1 or later

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter (64-bit)

SQL Server 2012

With or without Service Pack 1

Standard and Enterprise (64-bit)

Additional requirements and information

You must use an instance of SQL Server that allows case-insensitive database objects.

The name of the computer on which SQL Server runs cannot exceed 15 characters in length.

You can perform an in-place upgrade to a supported version of SQL Server (without moving the VMM database). Make sure no jobs are running when you perform the upgrade, or jobs may fail and may need to be restarted manually. For procedures, see the SQL Server documentation, for example, Upgrade to SQL Server 2012.

If the VMM management server and the computer on which SQL Server runs are not members of the same Active Directory domain, a two-way trust must exist between the two domains.

The SQL Server service must use an account that has permission to access Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). For example, you can specify the Local System Account, or a domain user account. Do not specify a local user account.

System Requirements: VMM Library Server in System Center 2012 SP1

Hardware requirements

The minimum and recommended hardware requirements for a System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) library server vary depending on a number of factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, the quantity and size of the following files that will be stored on the library server:

Virtual machine templates

Virtual hard disks

Virtual floppy disks

ISO images

Scripts

Stored virtual machines

Hardware component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

Pentium 4, 2.8 gigahertz (GHz)

Dual-core 64-bit, 3.2 GHz or greater

RAM

2 gigabytes (GB)

2 GB

Hard disk space

Varies based on the number and size of the stored files

Varies based on the number and size of the stored files

Software requirements

Before you add a VMM library server, you must install the following software.

Software

Notes

A supported operating system for the VMM library server

For more information, see Supported operating systems

Windows Remote Management (WinRM)

WinRM 1.1 is included in the Windows Server 2008 operating system. By default, the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is set to start automatically.

WinRM 2.0 is included in Windows Server 2008 R2. By default, the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is set to start automatically (delayed start).

WinRM 3.0 is included in Windows Server 2012 and in Windows Server 2012 R2. By default, the Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is set to start automatically.

Supported operating systems

Operating system for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager

Edition

System architecture

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 or earlier

(full installation or Server Core installation)

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x64

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2

(full installation or Server Core installation)

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x86 and x64

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 without Hyper-V

(full installation or Server Core installation)

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x86 and x64

Operating system for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1

Edition

System architecture

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter

x64

Windows Server 2012 (full installation or Server Core installation)

Standard and Datacenter

x64

Additional information

The .vhdx file format is supported only as of VMM library servers that are running Windows Server 2012.

You can use System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager to add highly available library shares on a failover cluster that is created in the following operating systems:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

You can use VMM in System Center 2012 SP1 to add highly available library shares on a failover cluster that is created in Windows Server 2012 Standard and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter.

VMM does not provide a method for replicating physical files in the VMM library or a method for transferring metadata for objects that are stored in the VMM database. You must replicate physical files outside VMM, and you must transfer metadata by using scripts or other means.

VMM does not support file servers that are configured with the case-sensitive option for Windows Services for UNIX, because the Network File System (NFS) case control is set to Ignore.